Survivors – A Novel of the Coming Collapse

Andy regained consciousness only briefly, as a doctor was setting his broken bone. But then he was unconscious for another three days. He awoke in a bed in Dangriga Hospital, bathed in sweat. An IV bag was hanging over his head.

The swelling of his leg had decreased noticeably, and it hurt only when he moved. After a few minutes a nurse came in. She was middle-aged and matronly.

“Ah, the sleeper awakens!” she said pleasantly.

“What day is it?”

“It’s Friday. You has been out for three days.”

Andy ask weakly, “Could I have some water, please?”

Two police officers from the “Dangriga Formation” arrived that afternoon. Laine described the ambush, robbery, and his crawl back to the road. He thought that it would be best if he didn’t mention his baggage at the cottages. The elder policeman described Belize as “overrun with Guatemalan refugees and robber gangs”-as well as some illegal border crossings from Mexico.

The words “I’m an American” and “They took my passport” were enough to assuage the police. They said that they’d have someone from the American consulate contact him. They didn’t seem too concerned with getting detailed descriptions of the bandits.

That afternoon, a young Belizean doctor gave Laine a morphine injection. He returned fifteen minutes later and set the broken bone. This was an odd experience for Andy. Because of the pain medication, he could observe the procedure with an almost detached clinical attitude. His main concern was that the bones were set correctly. Later, an older doctor with a Spanish surname but who spoke excellent British-accented English examined Laine. He declared, “Now that the swelling is down, we’ll need to double-check the position of the bone with an X-ray and then place a cast on your leg. We’ll then follow up with another X-ray, just to make sure we didn’t misalign the bones whilst casting.”

Andy slept very peacefully that night. As he was eating his breakfast, a hospital administrator came to visit. Andy mistakenly thought that he was a doctor at first but then realized that he was the hospital accountant. “There is one convalescent hospital nearby, but they are having trouble staying in operation with the recent currency fluctuations. I’ll see what can be done,” the administrator told him.

The next day he returned to Andy’s room and announced, “Your medical bill is being settled by the U.S. State Department under a reciprocal agreement. One of our vocational nurses just retired a few months ago. She and her husband have agreed to take you as a boarder, if you can either find a way to pay for that yourself or make some sort of additional payment arrangement through the American consulate.”

Andy improved rapidly and was released from the hospital after five days. He was taken by ambulance to the home of Darci Mora, a retired vocational nurse. Darci’s husband, Gabriel, was a semiretired logger and commercial hunter who had also worked as a hunting guide. Their flat-roofed cinder-block house was just outside Sarawiwa, six miles west of Dangriga. There, Andy occupied the second bedroom of the house. This bedroom had until recently been used by the Moras’ daughter, who had just married and moved to Nim Li Punit, a town in the southern end of Belize.

Darci was in her mid-fifties and overweight. Gabe was in his early sixties, and was lean and leathery, with a balding head. His skin was dark, but not just from his outdoor vocation. He had some Garifunan ancestry. The Moras were pleasant hosts. Darci was a great cook, and Gabe constantly cracked jokes and puns.

Andy missed his next Tuesday night ham radio contact night with Lars and Kaylee, but he had the strength for the next one. On that Tuesday afternoon, Gabe Mora helped Andy set up the radio. Following Andy’s directions, Gabe strung the antenna up to a tree outside the bedroom window. A cold-water pipe provided a good ground. The propagation was good, so Lars and Kaylee had no difficulty hearing Andy’s Morse tones. Lars, with a much more powerful transmitter, came in “Lima Charlie”-loud and clear. As Andy tapped out his messages, Gabe sat on the bedside chair wiping the sweat from his balding head with a handkerchief and sipping lime water. He was amazed that such a small radio could be used for two-way communication over such a long distance.

Andy was reassured to hear that Kaylee was safe and well, but he felt distressed, realizing that his broken leg would delay him by several months. He spent ten minutes summarizing what had happened since his last contact in stream-of-consciousness Morse code. Kaylee’s reply sounded as if she was overwhelmed. She keyed:

“BK RU AS SAD AS ME? WOE IS ME. WOE IS ME. I MISS YOU TONS ANDY. I WANT TO B THERE TO SIGN UR CAST. XOXOXOXOXOX. BT”

After three months of hobbling around on crutches, Andy finally had his cast cut off. He was horrified to see how the muscles in his right leg had wasted away. Clearly, it would take several more months to fully replenish the muscle mass of the atrophied leg.